In part eight of our Logic Pro X Quickstart Series, Scott Griffin shows you how to manipulate the timing of audio using Flex Time. Flex Time allows for powerful time based performance editing options and is an invaluable technique to understand.
Learn How To:
Correct drum performances
Lock in multiple performances to a unified groove
Create and edittransient and flexmarkers for seamless editing
Use anchor points to selectively edit portions of the performance and leave other areas unedited
Use the special effect Speed and Tempophonic algorithms to adjust pitch in time and add granular time stretching effects
00:00:06 Hey guys, today we're gonna
talk about Flextime inside of Logic.
00:00:10 Flextime allows me to
manipulate the timing of my audio
by using time compression and expansion.
00:00:17 It's similar to elastic audio
and is great for things like
time-based performance editing.
00:00:22 Meaning that I can fix a drummer
who falls off the click
or lock in the performance of
multiple musicians together.
00:00:28 Let's check it out.
00:00:30 Here we have a project
with just three tracks,
drums, bass and acoustic guitar.
00:00:34 Let's play them back and
I think you'll notice that they're not
quite grooving together but
we'll use Flextime to fix that.
00:00:50 Yeah, it's not terrible but
it can definitely be better.
00:00:53 To open up Flextime
we can hit the Flextime button up here
or we can use the key command
Cmd + F.
00:01:01 You'll notice that my tracks on the left
expand to show me a Flextime button
that allows me to activate Flextime.
00:01:08 And also I get the drop-down
where I can choose
which algorithm I wanna use.
00:01:12 Which we'll have to go a little bit later.
00:01:15 The first thing you'll notice
when I activate Flextime
is that I have a bunch of vertical lines
that line up with my transients.
00:01:23 Transients are that initial peak
that happen every time you create a sound.
00:01:28 It's that snap of a snare drum
or every time you pluck a bass
guitar you have a new transient.
00:01:34 Logic automatically
detects these transients for us
but because audio isn't perfect
we may not always agree with
what Logic has decided is a transient.
00:01:44 Now these gray lines
are our transient markers.
00:01:47 And if I double click on my region header
I can open up the editor
to edit these transient markers.
00:01:54 I need to go to file
and then I can select
transient editing mode here.
00:02:00 Or I can use the key command, Ctrl + T.
00:02:04 Now these orange lines
are my transient markers.
00:02:07 I can move my transient markers around
by hovering over them
and then just clicking and dragging.
00:02:12 I can also delete them by double-clicking.
00:02:15 Or add new ones by holding
Cmd and drawing a new one in.
00:02:19 I can also increase and decrease
the overall number of transients
by using the plus and minus
button up here.
00:02:26 This is essentially changing
the threshold of what a transient is.
00:02:30 Meaning that the louder
transients will still come through
even though I'm taking away
the smaller transients.
00:02:36 This is great for instances where
you have multiple mics on a drum-kit
end you have some
bleed from different drums.
00:02:42 I'm gonna hit 'E' to close the editor
and now let's take a look at Flextime.
00:02:49 In order to use Flextime
we need to create what Logic calls
Flex markers.
00:02:54 If I click on a transient marker
it converts into a Flex marker.
00:02:58 I can also create Flex markers
independently of my transient markers
by clicking pretty much anywhere I want.
00:03:05 I can now take these markers
and shift them around as I need.
00:03:11 Now you'll notice a couple
things as I do shift it.
00:03:14 Number 1, the audio that compresses
turns white and the audio
that expands turns gray.
00:03:20 This is nice because I can easily see
what's expanding and what's compressing.
00:03:24 You also notice that in my track header
I have a gray bar that shows me
where a Flex marker
was originally positioned.
00:03:31 I also have an X that allows
me to delete the Flex marker.
00:03:35 I can also delete Flex markers
by double-clicking on them.
00:03:39 You notice that my flex tool changes icons
depending on where I am in the region.
00:03:45 For instance,
if I'm over a transient marker
I have the flex tool with a plus sign,
meaning that if I click
I create a flex marker.
00:03:55 If I hover over an existing Flex marker
I have this icon
which means I'm ready to shift
the Flex marker around.
00:04:01 Now I can of course just
click and drag in one motion
and it creates and allows
me to shift at the same time.
00:04:08 If I hold Opt I can shift the position
of my Flex marker
without moving my audio,
giving me a new point of reference.
00:04:15 You also see that if
I go in-between transient markers
I can make new Flex
markers independent of them.
00:04:21 One important thing to note is
where my anchor points are
as I'm shifting a Flex marker in time.
00:04:27 As I shift this Flex marker
you'll notice that all the audio
expands to my left up until
the adjacent Flex marker.
00:04:34 And if I don't have a Flex marker
it just goes until the
edge of the region.
00:04:42 Up until now we've been
on the top half of the region.
00:04:46 We can correct this by
going to the bottom half
and you'll see that my symbol triples.
00:04:51 Meaning that I'm gonna create Flex markers
not only out of the
transient marker that I'm on
but the two adjacent transient markers.
00:04:59 Notice that it switches from
a gray line to a white line.
00:05:02 These are now Flex markers.
00:05:05 I can also create a Flex marker
in-between two transient lines
still activating my two anchors.
00:05:15 Anchors are important when you're
just trying to fix one straight note.
00:05:19 Without anchors you end up
affecting the entire audio track.
00:05:22 Let me show you.
00:05:23 If I shift this Flex marker
you'll see the entire audio track shift.
00:05:28 However, if I were to create anchors
I'm just shifting the audio within
those two anchors.
00:05:35 I also wanna point out that my
Flex markers adhere to by snap mode.
00:05:38 So if I were to switch to bar
and move a Flex marker
it will snap to the nearest bar.
00:05:45 Additionally, if we right-click
or Ctrl + click inside of our region
we have some edit options that
weren't available outside of Flextime.
00:05:54 We can 'Reset manual Flex edits'
which resets everything that we've done.
00:05:59 We can also
slice at our Flex markers,
which actually slices our regions.
00:06:05 If I go out of Flextime real fast
by hitting Cmd + F,
you can easily see that I have
new regions.
00:06:11 I'm gonna Edit and Undo
and go back into Flextime
because I can also slice up
my transient markers.
00:06:18 Now you can see that it created
many more regions.
00:06:22 This is because I have a
bunch of transient markers
and this is why it's important to understand
that I can edit my transient
markers in the audio editor.
00:06:30 I'm gonna hit Edit,
Undo and go back into Flex mode.
00:06:34 Our other option is
'Reset all Flex edits'.
00:06:37 This is gonna come into
play in just a moment.
00:06:40 Because we are in Flex time
we can shift our audio around.
00:06:43 One obvious application
of this is quantizing.
00:06:46 If we go into our region
portion of our Inspector
we can turn on quantize here.
00:06:55 I can also add swing, here.
00:06:58 And if I click on more
I have quantize strength
and quantize range
that I can adjust by clicking
and dragging up or down.
00:07:12 I can quickly get these
tracks grooving together
by selecting all,
by hitting Cmd + A
and selecting a common
quantize value, like
16th note Swing D.
00:07:31 Now, this is putting a lot of power
into the robot's hands
so it's always a good idea to go
and fine-tune the thing
you might disagree with.
00:07:53 Now, I don't necessarily
want a Flex marker
on the end of a note because
I want the release of that note
to be how I naturally played it.
00:08:08 And here, these notes are
pretty close together
and I'd rather just maintain
the natural feel that I played.
00:08:19 That's better.
00:08:20 Keep in mind that Flex
time is non-destructive.
00:08:23 Meaning,
we can turn it off anytime we want.
00:08:25 I can deactivate Flex time
by pressing this button.
00:08:29 Notice that if I've made an extreme edit
you'll see my waveform snap back
to its original position.
00:08:39 And then I can always reapply it.
00:08:41 Additionally,
I can do something similar to this
in the region portion of my Inspector
but with one advantage,
if I have more than one region that
I've done some Flex time editing to
I can choose which
ones I want to be active.
00:08:54 So here I'm activating the whole track
but I may want to say this region here,
I want to turn off
by hitting this Flex check mark here.
00:09:03 I can also use the shortcut Ctrl + F.
00:09:07 Earlier I pointed out some different
algorithms that we can choose from.
00:09:11 Let's quickly go through
when to use each algorithm.
00:09:14 When you open up Flex time,
by default your mode is Automatic.
00:09:18 Meaning that Logic will
analyze your audio file
and pick what it thinks
is the appropriate algorithm.
00:09:26 For my bass track
in automatic mode
it will set it to polyphonic.
00:09:30 However, because I know that
I only played one note at a time
I would rather use monophonic
for this particular track.
00:09:39 Monophonic
is designed for instruments that play
one note at a time.
00:09:43 Like bass guitar or monophonic synth
or lead vocal.
00:09:48 Polyphonic is designed for
instruments that play
more than one note at a time.
00:09:52 Like chords.
00:09:53 So, examples of that
would be guitars or piano.
00:09:57 Both monophonic and polyphonic modes
use time compression and expansion.
00:10:02 So when we compress our time
we're taking information away
because there's less time
between our two Flex markers.
00:10:09 When we expand we
kind of run into a problem
because we have to add information.
00:10:13 The monophonic and polyphonic
algorithms do a pretty good job
but there are times where
we'd rather have our audio playback
at its original speed
and not necessarily
adding new information.
00:10:25 For drums we usually use slicing mode.
00:10:30 Slicing mode plays back our audio
at its original speed.
00:10:34 You can actually see that our waveform
has a gap and is not stretching.
00:10:39 However, because we have this
'Fill Gaps' parameter selected
you won't hear this gap
because it fills it in
with information that's around it.
00:10:50 Let's take a listen.
00:10:59 Rhythmic Mode was designed
for things like palm-muted guitars
and rhythmic pianos.
00:11:05 It takes a small section
of the area between your
flex-markers and loops it.
00:11:10 It's actually what drives the Apple Loops.
If you've ever used the Apple Loops before
you know how easy it
is to change the tempo.
00:11:18 Now, one important thing to note
about using Flex time is that
it's very important
to use it subtly or else things start
to sound weird, you get strange artifacts
or just start to sound very unnatural.
00:11:31 And you don't want that.
00:11:33 Unless of course you do want that.
00:11:35 And which case you should use
the two special FX algorithms,
Speed and Tempophone.
00:11:42 Speed not only compress
and expands the timing
but it also affects the pitch.
00:12:07 Speed is of course
best used as special FX.
00:12:10 The last algorithm that
we have is Tempophone
which emulates a tempophone
which apparently was some old machine
that could compress and expand time.
00:12:20 You do get a lot of mechanical distortion
and granular artifacts.
Check it out.
00:12:42 Then there are a couple more things
I want to point out
before we get out of here.
00:12:46 The first thing is that
if we open up our audio editor
we can actually use Flextime within here.
00:12:53 If we click on the Flex button
we can use Flextime
just like in the tracks area.
00:12:59 However, I find myself
working in the tracks area a lot more
because you can see how your audio
lines up to other tracks.
00:13:06 So if I wanna align
this transient with the
drum hit above it
I can see exactly how
they relate to each other.
00:13:15 The other thing I'm
gonna point out is that
if I'm not in Flex mode
I actually have a Flex tool
that I can use to do Flextime.
00:13:24 If I hit 'T' to open up my tool menu
and then 'X'
to open up the Flex tool
without going into flex mode
I can change the timing of my audio.
00:13:35 Now, what are we actually doing here?
If we open up Flex mode we can see
that I'm simply doing the same thing
as I'm doing at the bottom of my region,
which is creating two anchors
and then shifting my new Flex marker.
00:13:50 I find myself going into Flextime
more often than using the Flex Tool
just because you can
better see what's going on
but for a quick edit the
Flex Tool totally works.
00:14:01 That was a quick overview of Flextime
and already you can see
how powerful it can be.
00:14:06 And more importantly, sometimes
it's easier to use Flextime
than it is to call up that bassist to
just didn't quite have the groove.
00:14:12 I'm that bassist a lot of the time guys,
leave me alone. I see you next time.
Once logged in, you will be able to read all the transcripts jump around in the video.
Scott Griffin is a producer, songwriter, and composer for artists like Kid Runner, Effee, The Saylor, and Clubhouse. He has also produced custom music for large brands such as Proctor & Gamble, The Columbus Crew Soccer Club, Walmart, Nationwide Insurance and many more.
